innuendo

An indirect or subtle, usually derogatory implication in expression; an insinuation.

A plaintiff’s allegation explicating the defamatory meaning of the publication or utterance in a libel suit.

[L.] Intimating; insinuating; signifying: a word used at the beginning of an explanatory parenthetical clause in Latin (Middle Latin), and still occasionally in English, pleadings, introducing the person or thing meant: as, he (innuendo the plaintiff) did so and so.

n.; pl. innuendos or innuendoes (-dōz). An oblique hint; an indirect intimation about a person or thing; an allusive or inferential suggestion: commonly used in a bad sense, but sometimes in an innocent one. Also, erroneously, inuendo.

Synonyms See hint, transitive verb (end of comparison).

An oblique hint; a remote allusion or reference, usually derogatory to a person or thing not named; an insinuation.

An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; — as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief.

A derogatory hint or reference to a person or thing. An implication or insinuation.

an indirect (and usually malicious) implication